Daily Journal: Conservatives should favor redistricting reform

In the twilight of his political career, Ronald Reagan made the media rounds to discuss his administration, legacy, and unfinished business. During several of these interviews, Reagan went out of his way to criticize the longtime practice of gerrymandering electoral districts for partisan advantage.

“I think this is a great conflict of interest,” Reagan told ABC news host (and North Carolina native) David Brinkley in 1988, “to ask men holding office, elected from districts, to change the lines of that district to fit the new population.” Speaking to Firing Line host William F. Buckley a couple of years later, Reagan argued strongly that the redistricting process should be reformed. Describing the convoluted congressional districts in the Los Angeles area as resembling a “nest of snakes,” Reagan complained that legislative majorities in California and most other states had “funneled” as many voters of the opposing party into “a few districts as possible” to subvert the will of the voters.

Bill Buckley, by the way, was also critical of partisan gerrymandering during his long career as a conservative columnist and commentator — ridiculing it a “Mickey Mouse” approach to governance, among other things.

As a conservative who came of age politically during the Reagan era, I can’t help chuckling to myself whenever a Republican critic responds to my longtime advocacy of redistricting reform by questioning my conservative credentials.

Reagan considered gerrymandering to be one of the major impediments to enacting his agenda in Washington. In his day, most legislatures were controlled by Democrats. Most victims of egregious gerrymandering were Republicans. That was certainly the case in North Carolina, where gerrymandering has a long, disreputable, and mostly Democratic history.